Motor vehicles have lights generally in their forward and rear areas. By varying optical signals from the lights such as color, frequency, brightness, and the like, the lights serve to indicate lane changes or announce an emergency situation (warning lights) for the vehicle.
In the interests of improving traffic safety, EP 1 172 257 A2 discloses additional blinker lights to be provided on outside mirrors of motor vehicles.
DE 198 08 139 proposes, in this respect, the use of fluorescent tubes. These blinker lights must, most importantly, be observable by following traffic, so that, the intention of a change in direction can be detected promptly. At the same time, the blinker lights themselves must not dazzle or irritate the driver.
DE 199 59 609 A1, in this matter, describes the placement of at least one LED on a back side of an outside mirror housing, in such a manner that the LED light is emitted in exactly directed beams and thus, because of aimed alignment of the LED, the driver is not dazzled upon looking in the mirror.
However, it is difficult with a known apparatus to attain the legal intensity of illumination for commercial vehicles, which is clearly higher than that of the standards for personal passenger motor vehicles. In Germany, for example, such auxiliary blinking lights must comply with Category 6 ECE.
A sufficiently intense illumination is desirable in the mirror housing that is not in the direct line of sight of a driver, but rather is visible to an observer in a position behind the vehicle such that the emitted light is deflected rearward by an appropriately shaped light conductor.
In this matter, first, an appropriate light conductor is necessary. Second, because of scattering losses and the like in the light conductor, the source of light must be of a greater intensity than the optionally desired intensity of emission, which leads to higher heating, a greater consumption of energy, and a more expensive means of light generation. Moreover, dazzling and irritation of the driver is possible from the light conductor due to emergence dispersion, etc.